Mr Shapps, “-ing”, not “-ist” makes all the difference.

The Transport Minister Grant Shapps wrote a letter to all highways authorities last week. I won’t go into a full discussion of the letter here, because Carlton Reid has already done an excellent article on it. Instead I just want to focus on one specific aspect, which may seem unimportant at first sight but I think captures a significant problem in the way people think about and discuss transport – tribalism. This is not a new issue in itself, and has been discussed many times over, but I felt this letter brings it out in a striking way.

The last four paragraphs of Grant Shapps’s letter say:

Schemes must balance the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with the needs of other road-users, including motorists and local businesses. Only authorities which have passed these key tests will receive the funding they have asked for.

I want to be absolutely clear: we are not prepared to tolerate hastily introduced schemes which will create sweeping changes to communities without consultation, and ones where the benefits to cycling and walking do not outweigh the dis-benefits for other road users.

I look forward to seeing the funding go toward genuinely positive changes to our roads, to make sure that everyone has the space and ability to move easily and without delay, no matter their transport type. I would like to thank you for all of your efforts in delivering such schemes in what are very testing times.

No one should be in doubt about our support for motorists. This Government is investing £27 billion to upgrade our roads and more to tackle potholes. We’re also investing in charging infrastructure to speed the transition to the electric vehicles, which will allow motorists the same freedom while meeting our commitments to tackle climate change.

One of the problems with this wording is that it feeds the tribalism that clouds most discussion on this topic. It reinforces the impression that there are mutually exclusive tribes of people demanding their rights as members of their tribes, when in fact we are all just people making daily choices about how to get about. Look what happens when we change “-ist” to “-ing” wherever it appears, and replace “users” with “uses” and “type” with “choice”.

Schemes must balance the needs of cycling and walking with the needs of other road uses, including motoring and local business uses. Only authorities which have passed these key tests will receive the funding they have asked for.

I want to be absolutely clear: we are not prepared to tolerate hastily introduced schemes which will create sweeping changes to communities without consultation, and ones where the benefits to cycling and walking do not outweigh the dis-benefits for other road uses.

I look forward to seeing the funding go toward genuinely positive changes to our roads, to make sure that everyone has the space and ability to move easily and without delay, no matter their transport choice. I would like to thank you for all of your efforts in delivering such schemes in what are very testing times.

No one should be in doubt about our support for motoring. This Government is investing £27 billion to upgrade our roads and more to tackle potholes. We’re also investing in charging infrastructure to speed the transition to the electric vehicles, which will allow motoring the same freedom while meeting our commitments to tackle climate change.

These are tiny changes to the text, but the whole emphasis shifts away from “who gets what” towards “how we choose to travel”. It brings out the clear need to consider the impact of our choices and the fact that if we choose one thing, there is a clear cost.

For example, the changed wording makes much clearer the absurdity of the sentence: everyone has the space and ability to move easily and without delay, no matter their transport choice. That is clearly impossible to achieve given that we have only a finite amount of space available. If, collectively, we choose to drive, there is not enough space, and the more space we allocate to driving, the less space we have available when we choose other modes. The discussion can then shift towards considering collectively what is the best use of our street and road space.

In another striking example, the sentence: No one should be in doubt about our support for motorists makes it appear that this is a social justice issue for the poor beleaguered tribe called “motorists”. Change that to No one should be in doubt about our support for motoring and it becomes very clear that it means making it easy for people – you and me – to choose motor vehicles over other modes of transport, which absolutely goes against the notion of meeting our commitments to tackle climate change.

It’s often seemingly very small things that make a huge difference to the discourse, and we need to be aware of that at all times.

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